Walking Brooklyn. Adrienne Onofri

      It may be self-defeating for me to say so, but you really don’t need a guide in Brooklyn Heights. It’s compact, and wherever you might wander, you’ll probably like what you see. This was Brooklyn’s first residential neighborhood—America’s first suburb, some call it—and it still contains hundreds of antebellum homes. It was also the first historic district designated by the city, which means the old houses haven’t been getting demolished, as happens in communities without landmark protection. The architectural riches of Brooklyn Heights include some glorious churches and other public buildings. And perched along its west end is the Promenade, offering views of the East River and many of NYC’s most famous landmarks. All things considered, the Heights has few peers among urban communities in this country.

      Walk Description

      Exit the subway on Henry Street. You’ve emerged from within the St. George, a hotel described in a 1930s guidebook as “the social mecca of all Brooklyn.” It opened in 1885, and by 1929 had expanded to 2,632 guest rooms—the most of any hotel in the world. Its ballroom, saltwater pool, and rooftop restaurant were legendary. The hotel closed in the 1970s, and the building is now residential.

Go to the left on Henry, then make a left on Orange Street. Plymouth Church, on your right, was a destination unto itself from 1849 to 1887, when people came from far and near for the sermons of Congregationalist minister Henry Ward Beecher. Beecher, brother of Uncle Tom’s Cabin author Harriet Beecher Stowe, was a leading progressive and huge celebrity in his day, complete with his own adultery scandal (the Pulitzer Prize–winning 2006 biography of him is titled The Most Famous Man in America). In the garden next to the church are a statue of Beecher (holding one of his mock slave auctions that essentially bought the slave’s freedom) and a bas-relief of Abraham Lincoln, who worshipped at the church; both were made by Mount Rushmore sculptor Gutzon Borglum.

      Make a right on Hicks Street. That two-dormered corner building on your left at Cranberry dates to 1822.

      Turn right on Cranberry Street. Midblock on the left is the Church of the Assumption, erected in 1908. The parish (est. 1842) lost its original building, located farther east, to eminent domain when the Manhattan Bridge was constructed. The Art Deco Cranlyn apartment building on your right near the end of the block has terrific polychromatic terra cotta panels and a metal bas-relief at the main entrance featuring the Williamsburgh Savings Bank clocktower—the pride of Brooklyn at the time of the Cranlyn’s construction, as it had opened just a few years earlier as the borough’s only skyscraper.

      Turn left on Henry. The residential complex to your right, Whitman Close, was the approximate location of the Rome brothers’ print shop, where Walt Whitman set type in 1855 for his first edition of Leaves of Grass.

      Turn left on Middagh Street. On your right is the old factory of Peaks Mason Mints; some of their candies are today produced by the Tootsie Roll company, while their building is now a condo. This block also contains a house from 1829 at #56. Virtually the entire block past Hicks is composed of pre-1850 wood houses. The most celebrated is the corner house at #24, sometimes erroneously identified as the oldest in the Heights (it’s close, built in 1824). On the Willow Street side, you can see that the home has its own cottage. Proceed across Willow and look into the playground named for “Cat’s in the Cradle” singer Harry Chapin, who grew up in the Heights. Another popular story-song of his, “Taxi,” is represented in the benches. Walk around the park, going left onto Columbia Heights.

      Make a left on Cranberry. This is the street where Cher kicked a can as she dreamily strolled home after her night at the opera in Moonstruck. The house at #19 was used for exterior shots of her home.

      Turn right on Willow Street, where the star is #70—built in 1839 and one of the largest Greek Revival homes in New York. Truman Capote wrote Breakfast at Tiffany’s there while he was the basement tenant of his friend Oliver Smith, a Broadway set designer, who owned the house for 40 years.

      On your left after Pineapple the whole block is consumed by an exquisite building that used to be Brooklyn’s most expensive hotel, the Leverich Towers, which charged $3 a night in 1931. In the glory days of the Leverich, its towers were illuminated every evening. But in the daylight you can better appreciate their hexagonal design, colonnades, and balconies.

The next block of Willow presents a long and lovely assortment of decorating schemes and eras. One brownstone on your right houses Dansk Sømandskirke (Danish Seamen’s Church), the only church in North America that still holds services in Danish. On #110 and 112, look for child figures in the terra cotta decoration,